INTERNATIONAL VITAMIN CORPORATION
PROCUREMENT STRATEGY but operational knowledge reveals critical differences that only experienced practitioners understand.
Javier offered a more structured approach in the form of decision mapping.
“ By mapping our decision-making process, we can define whether certain decisions will be taken by a human or could be automated,” he revealed.“ We map all the decisions we make in different processes across sourcing and procurement.”
Grupo Herdez’ s procurement chief continued with a powerful statement:“ Technology will help us to deal with transactions, but you need a human to deal with the relation. In my opinion, we will never delegate that human connection to technology.”
Implementation challenges The panellists identified change management as the most significant barrier to successful digital procurement implementation.
Mark noted that this element is consistently underestimated during the project planning stage:“ A project might make sense to us [ in procurement ] and we understand the vision, but getting that out to everyone else – for whom procurement is not their job – is really hard”.
Data quality emerged as another critical challenge, with Javier highlighting how organisations often discover incomplete master data management during implementation.
“ When you start a project and carry out these kinds of implementations, you often realise some preparation work was
INTERNATIONAL VITAMIN CORPORATION
HEADQUARTERS: GREENVILLE, US NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 1,000 NUMBER OF COUNTRIES: 80 +
not done,” he notes.“ One, for example, could be working on the master data management of the databases of users, suppliers, customers, which need to be fed into these digital platforms.
“ Something I always recommend – if you have an implementation partner – is asking what kind of data they will need to start the project.”
Jack advocated for a measured implementation approach, advising“ start small”.
He continued:“ There are a lot of really cool end-to-end solutions and I do aspire to eventually have one tool that does everything for me, but I’ ve learned many times to start small with one solution – at least at the beginning.”
Eric concluded by echoing this sentiment:“ It can be tempting to go for everything at once, but you need the discipline to start small and deliver that quick win that builds excitement and buy-in. Then, you have a foundation to take the next step in your evolution.”
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